The mediating role of school absenteeism in the socioeconomic achievement gap

Abstract

Socioeconomic disparities in children's academic achievement are well established, but the underlying mechanisms are less well understood. We used linked data from the Millennium Cohort Study (MCS) and the National Pupil Database (NPD) with causal mediation analysis to determine the extent to which school absences contribute to socioeconomic achievement gaps. Using different achievement measures (reading, writing, math, science, and average), we found that a one standard deviation increase in socioeconomic status improves achievement by 0.37 to 0.43 standard deviations. Appropriately accounting for a rich set of mediator-outcome confounders, school absenteeism is a significant mechanism (6.45 to 8.10%) for these socioeconomic achievement gaps.